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Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

I plan on going to the Grand-Am three hours of Indy on Friday and the Brickyard 400 on Sunday. That being said, before the race on Sunday, at 10:00 am on SPEED channel there is a show called NASCAR RaceDay and they talk about the race in front of a crowd. Anyway, every year I take a sign and the past few years I have learned how to get on TV, and this year I made a sign (posted below) and maybe if you guys watch you'll see me on TV.

"What you do is so loud, I can't hear what you say" -Andrew Luck
"If you turn the other cheek, I'm gonna hit you in the other cheek, too" -Charles Barkley
"Ego is edging greatness out" -Rick Pitino

Sophomore at the University of Louisville
Greenfield-Central High School Alum '14
Follow me on Twitter @steagles1

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

I love racing. To each their own but any kind of car racing is something I'd watch.

Yeah, I am not bad mouthing people that enjoy it--just not my thing. I like the racing atmosphere and the partying associated with it, but to me, it's watching 30-40 cars drive in big *** circles for an extended period of time. Just isn't something that tickles my fancy. Taking someone who is basically a stranger also puts a damper on it.

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

I love racing. To each their own but any kind of car racing is something I'd watch.

Having just come off of several nights of Indiana Sprint Week, I agree.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...nce-stephenson
"But, first, let us now praise famous moments, because something happened Tuesday night in Indianapolis that you can watch a lifetimeís worth of professional basketball and never see again. There was a brief, and very decisive, and altogether unprecedented, outburst of genuine officiating, and it was directed at the best player in the world, and that, my dear young person, simply is not done."

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

Me too. But let's face facts. By and large, the racing sucks and once you've been to the "event" once or twice it's a lot more comfortable to watch it on your TV in the air conditioning. Having to almost carry your wife to the Coke lot when she's almost passed out from the heat is a challenge...

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...nce-stephenson
"But, first, let us now praise famous moments, because something happened Tuesday night in Indianapolis that you can watch a lifetimeís worth of professional basketball and never see again. There was a brief, and very decisive, and altogether unprecedented, outburst of genuine officiating, and it was directed at the best player in the world, and that, my dear young person, simply is not done."

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

Me too. But let's face facts. By and large, the racing sucks and once you've been to the "event" once or twice it's a lot more comfortable to watch it on your TV in the air conditioning. Having to almost carry your wife to the Coke lot when she's almost passed out from the heat is a challenge...

Yeah, I don't think I would have even accepted free tickets to today's race.

You have to understand though a **** ton of people are in the infield and there are like 300,000 seats. Even if the stands are half empty there are like 200-250 thousand fans making it in the top 3-4 NASCAR races. IMS is ENORMOUS.

Sent from #PacerNation using Tapatalk

"What you do is so loud, I can't hear what you say" -Andrew Luck
"If you turn the other cheek, I'm gonna hit you in the other cheek, too" -Charles Barkley
"Ego is edging greatness out" -Rick Pitino

Sophomore at the University of Louisville
Greenfield-Central High School Alum '14
Follow me on Twitter @steagles1

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

You have to understand though a **** ton of people are in the infield and there are like 300,000 seats. Even if the stands are half empty there are like 200-250 thousand fans making it in the top 3-4 NASCAR races. IMS is ENORMOUS.

Sent from #PacerNation using Tapatalk

I know. I'm just saying that there used to be no empty seats back in the day.

The Following User Says Thank You to Sollozzo For This Useful Post:

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

I think there's more to it than the above.... Speaking for myself I've gradually lost interest in Nascar and the Brickyard 400 and I cannot put my finger on any one reason. Even when it comes to TV it's went from 'can't miss' to 'I'll try and watch the start and then catch the finish if I can'. Now, I never was a huge Nascar fan as compared to Indycar. But I'm not a hater by any stretch. I think I'll try and get some thoughts together and come back to this thread in a while.

Some quick thoughts now on what I saw on TV. The stands looked empty. Sparse might be an understatement. I don't think the stands were half full either. 1/4 maybe. Thinking back to the day that the BY400 was first announced I thought it was to be WITHOUT an infield crowd. No general admission. Every ticket holder was to have a seat. IIRC this was to make make sure the BY400 could never surpass an Indy 500 crowd. I remember talk at the time was about how Nascar fans would take to the idea they couldn't be grilling and partying in the infield with their RV's and tents... something that I believe at the time was a staple to the series and allowed at every other track. This was the first year I saw mention of viewing mounds and grills in the infield. I haven't paid that much attention so I don't know when this changed or if it's been this way from the start and the original proposal was scrapped. Dunno?

Indy 500-
I've been wondering about when the Indy 500 decline became 'real' and noticable and just what it really is. Seats have been disappearing for a while now. Some made room for the F1 track and facilities. Others, like lower seats on the entrance to pit road on the tower terrace disappeared this year (and it doesn't take a rocket science to guess it was only because they weren't being used).

But if you go back and look at the 96 Indy 500 on YouTube (the first IRL 500 if you will) you can see the decline is not apparent to the TV cameras yet. I was surprised just how packed it was. Fans at least tested the post-CART product. It's amazing to see the drop off from what it was in '96 even to now. I'm not convinced numbers have improved recently as much as just the perception that numbers have improved have allowed for a more positive media 'atmosphere'. I assume at least the bleeding has been stemmed. But I can't say that for the BY400.

Last edited by Bball; 07-29-2012 at 05:42 PM.

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

Indy 500-
I've been wondering about when the Indy 500 decline became 'real' and noticable and just what it really is. Seats have been disappearing for a while now. Some made room for the F1 track and facilities. Others, like lower seats on the entrance to pit road on the tower terrace disappeared this year (and it doesn't take a rocket science to guess it was only because they weren't being used).

For this year's 500, I sat in the third turn after years of sitting in the first turn area. There aren't too many empty seats in the first turn as it is one of the most popular areas of the track. So I was STUNNED to see with my own eyes just how many empty seats there were at the end of the backstretch and into the third turn. It was truly sad to see.

The Following User Says Thank You to Sollozzo For This Useful Post:

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

Here's a clip from '96. It's a couple laps of yellow and then the final lap under green. So you get to see the crowd back then. It looks like a normal Indy... compare that with crowds today. Obviously, attendance didn't immediately fall off with the IRL... but it's clearly fallen a long way throughout the IRL years.

I'm not sure the bleeding has really stopped yet, but the perception that it's stopped is out there now. So that's a start. It was starting to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.http://youtu.be/mXEry6ir23U

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

I was at the Brickyard today, and I can tell you that even calling the grandstands 1/4 full would be generous. The ticket checker guy said they were only expecting a little over 100,000 people. After seeing that snoozer of a race, I can understand why people wouldn't go. I certainly won't again. Free tickets/travel/booze be damned.

The Following User Says Thank You to cdash For This Useful Post:

Re: Brickyard Super Weekend 2012 Thread

And today was actually decent weather, wasn't it? Wasn't the high about 91? That's obviously hot, but it's pretty comfortable given the rash of upper 90's/100's that we've had this summer. 91 is a decent temperature by Brickyard 400 standards.

No one can use the excuse of "yeah the attendance was bad, but it was 102 degrees out there".